S.F. Nadel - The Foundations of Social Anthropology

THE FOUNDATIONS OF
SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY

ANTHROPOLOGY AND ETHNOGRAPHY

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
In 16 Volumes

First published in 1951

Reprinted in 2004 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Transferred to Digital Printing 2009

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The Foundations of Social Anthropology

ISBN 0-415-32556-0 (set)

ISBN 0-415-33038-6

ISBN 9-781-136-54284-8

Miniset: Social and Cultural Anthropology

Series: Routledge Library Editions Anthropology and Ethnography

Foundations

Social Anthropology

by

S. F. NADEL

LONDON: COHEN & WEST LTD

1951

And, as the science of man is the only solid foundation for the other sciences, so, the only solid foundation we can give to this science itself must be laid on experience and observation.

HUME: A Treatise of Human Nature

The new tinge to modern minds is a vehement and passionate interest in the relation of general principles to irreducible and stubborn facts.

WHITEHEAD: Science and the Modern World

To this we now add, as a helpful analogy provided it is not pressed too far, that conscious purpose is the matter and chance the empty space of the objective world. In the physical universe matter occupies only a small region compared with the empty space; but, rightly or wrongly, we look on it as the most significant part. In the same way we look on consciousness as the significant part of the objective universe, though it appears to occur only in isolated centres in a background of chaos.

EDDINGTON: The Philosophy of Physical Science

COPYRIGHT

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD.

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, GLASGOW

T his book is not a Textbook on Social Anthropology. It does not attempt to summarize either the knowledge we possess of primitive societies or the advances we have made in their study. At least, such a summary is incidental to the main theme of the book, which is concerned, rather, with the logical premises that underlie our knowledge of societies (whether they be primitive or otherwise) and with the prerequisites, conceptual and technical, of any enquiry meant to lead to this knowledge. If the clumsily informative titles of earlier scholars were still in fashion I might have called my book Prolegomena to the Study of Society: being an Enquiry into the Nature of Sociological Knowledge. As it is, I speak simply of Foundations.

This book, then, is about Method. But I trust that it does not thereby qualify for Poincars cynical comment: Nearly every sociological thesis proposes a new method which, however, its author is careful not to apply, so that sociology is the science with the greatest number of methods and the least results. The methods here analyzed are constantly appliedby others as well as myself. Also, they have produced results, to which the literature of anthropology amply testifies. In a different sense, however, there is some lack of agreement between anthropological method and practice. For much that is fundamental in the method of social anthropology has been applied tacitly as well as unguardedly, without full awareness of all that it implies. Indeed, judged from this viewpoint, it seems true to say that anthropology has been concerned too much with results, and too little with thinking about method. I have attempted to think about method; and here my task has often resolved itself into bringing into the open what other anthropologists have left unexpressed, rendering tacit methods explicit, and exhibiting their full import. Much of what I shall have to say will thus be a restatement of things well known. Yet I felt that they needed restatement, both in explicit terms and in some new order capable of standing on its own, that is, in the form of a system. Scientific progress rests in large measure on such a reordering of things known; which is my justification.

Restatement involves, inevitably, the choice of new words or the revision of familiar ones. In this book, therefore, considerable space will be devoted to linguistic and terminological issues. I do not think that an apology is needed. That all sciences operate with words is a truism; that our science also deals with a subject matter in great part made up of words, I hope to show. Nor will it be denied that the linguistic usage in our discipline is greatly in need of reform and that we have let its diversity and arbitrariness grow too far. It is in a sense a task of conscience to cut back this growth. Yet I would overrate neither the promise nor the urgency of this task. Even sciences more mature and more rigorous than ours have not fully unified their vocabulary. Nor can diversity and arbitrariness of usage be avoided entirely. In some ways, and at some stage of our enquiries, we all act like Humpty Dumpty and make words mean what we like. And if I am here trying a little to correct this failing in others, I may well be guilty of it myself.